Wednesday, June 17, 2009

NB for reasons I dont understand there is a lot of white space before the tables.

I was playing about with the data from the university league table in the independent, and it seemed to me that it was looking at the wrong thing from a student's perspective, which ought to be the value added by going there.So, I have produced two tables which show the value add calculated in different ways.Table 1: I scaled the percentage of students getting a good degree by dividing them by 90.1, the percentage getting a good degree at Oxford and scaled the entry points to be out of 100 (ie I divided them by 530, the entry points of students entering Cambridge). Subtracting the scaled entry points from the scaled percentage getting a good degree yields the following table:

Rank

Institution

adjusted percentage getting a good degree

adjusted entry points

value add

1

Bolton

58.4

37.6

20.8

2

Bath Spa

71.8

51.3

20.6

3

London South Bank

53.8

34.9

18.9

4

Northampton

61.3

42.8

18.5

5

Coventry

67.1

49.0

18.1

6

Bradford

67.2

50.7

16.5

7

Exeter

88.6

72.6

16.1

8

University of Wales, Newport

56.2

40.4

15.8

9

Roehampton

57.8

42.3

15.5

10

Middlesex

52.5

37.4

15.2

11

Plymouth

66.9

51.9

15.0

12

Reading

79.6

64.7

14.9

13

Thames Valley

53.8

38.9

14.9

14

Sussex

88.3

73.5

14.8

15

Goldsmiths College

72.0

57.6

14.4

16

Stirling

75.4

61.1

14.3

17

Sheffield Hallam

64.5

50.3

14.2

18

Ulster

66.7

52.6

14.1

19

Winchester

63.7

50.5

13.2

20

Salford

60.1

46.9

13.2

21

West of England

62.1

49.1

13.0

22

Birmingham City

62.8

49.9

12.9

23

Napier

67.6

54.7

12.9

24

Gloucestershire

60.9

48.4

12.5

25

Nottingham Trent

62.6

50.1

12.5

26

Glamorgan

57.5

45.1

12.4

27

Bedfordshire

52.2

39.9

12.3

28

Aberystwyth

68.6

56.6

12.0

29

Buckinghamshire New

49.6

37.8

11.8

30

Keele

71.1

59.4

11.7

31

Huddersfield

59.1

47.4

11.7

32

Staffordshire

58.3

46.6

11.7

33

Brunel

70.7

59.1

11.7

34

SOAS

81.5

69.9

11.5

35

Brighton

65.3

53.8

11.5

36

Anglia Ruskin

58.1

46.6

11.5

37

Kingston

55.5

44.1

11.4

38

East London

45.1

34.1

11.0

39

Lampeter

62.3

51.4

10.9

40

City

70.7

60.3

10.4

41

Leeds Metropolitan

59.5

49.2

10.4

42

Bournemouth

63.3

53.6

9.7

43

Queen's, Belfast

78.0

68.5

9.5

44

Lincoln

58.7

49.6

9.2

45

Southampton

83.0

73.9

9.1

46

Westminster

55.1

46.0

9.1

47

Oxford Brookes

65.6

56.5

9.1

48

Bangor

61.8

52.8

8.9

49

Teesside

55.8

46.9

8.9

50

UWIC, Cardiff

54.0

45.1

8.9

51

Chester

60.3

51.4

8.9

52

Wolverhampton

45.7

36.8

8.8

53

Essex

67.1

58.4

8.7

54

Glasgow Caledonian

72.9

64.3

8.6

55

Kent

66.3

57.9

8.4

56

Leicester

76.6

68.3

8.3

57

Greenwich

47.1

38.8

8.3

58

De Montfort

54.4

46.5

7.9

59

Hull

62.6

55.2

7.4

60

Nottingham

84.0

77.0

7.0

61

East Anglia

75.0

68.1

6.9

62

Leeds

79.7

73.0

6.7

63

Aston

73.0

66.4

6.7

64

Manchester Metropolitan

56.9

50.4

6.6

65

Loughborough

74.8

68.3

6.5

66

Hertfordshire

52.9

46.9

6.0

67

Central Lancashire

56.5

50.5

6.0

68

Canterbury Christ Church

52.2

46.4

5.9

69

Sunderland

52.9

47.0

5.9

70

Worcester

50.7

45.0

5.7

71

Southampton Solent

47.9

42.4

5.4

72

Lancaster

76.4

71.2

5.2

73

Royal Holloway

73.8

68.7

5.1

74

Bristol

87.0

82.0

5.0

75

Queen Margaret

65.0

60.3

4.7

76

Bath

85.8

81.1

4.7

77

Robert Gordon

65.3

60.7

4.6

78

Surrey

68.7

64.2

4.5

79

St Andrews

93.1

88.9

4.3

80

Derby

53.0

49.0

4.0

81

Newcastle

79.0

75.1

3.9

82

Portsmouth

54.8

51.3

3.5

83

Liverpool John Moores

50.1

46.8

3.3

84

Sheffield

79.8

76.6

3.3

85

Liverpool

75.0

71.8

3.2

86

York St John

56.3

53.1

3.2

87

Queen Mary

67.5

64.4

3.1

88

Oxford

100.0

96.9

3.1

89

King's College London

80.1

77.0

3.1

90

Durham

87.5

84.5

3.0

91

Warwick

88.1

85.3

2.9

92

Chichester

51.8

49.0

2.8

93

Edge Hill

49.3

46.7

2.6

94

Cardiff

75.0

72.8

2.3

95

Aberdeen

77.4

75.3

2.1

96

York

82.9

80.9

2.0

97

Cumbria

52.7

50.8

1.9

98

Edinburgh

88.7

87.9

0.8

99

Birmingham

75.9

75.3

0.6

100

Northumbria

55.4

54.9

0.5

101

University College London

83.4

82.9

0.4

102

Manchester

78.3

78.1

0.2

103

Swansea

55.4

55.8

-0.3

104

Glasgow

76.0

81.1

-5.1

105

Cambridge

94.8

100.0

-5.2

106

London School of Economics

83.4

89.3

-5.8

107

West of Scotland *

51.2

59.2

-8.1

108

University of the Arts, London

65.3

73.7

-8.4

109

Heriot-Watt

61.1

71.0

-9.9

110

Strathclyde

82.8

93.3

-10.5

111

Imperial College

76.7

89.3

-12.6

112

Abertay Dundee

52.8

66.0

-13.2

113

Dundee

73.6

89.0

-15.4

However, it could be argued that completion rate is also important, and that students who drop out artificially raise the percentage completing with a good degree. If one adjusts for this then the table changes somewhat. The entry points is adjusted in the same way, and the good degrees is calculated as percentage getting a good degree times percentage completing, adjusting so that Oxford gets 100 (ie all figures are divided by .88). The resulting table then looks like:

I noticed that in making the economic case the capital cost of the Kindle (the Sony equivalent is over £200), with savings of about 30% on the printed books one needs to spend £600 on books to save money, and there is no second hand market. What is more they cannot easily be shared between people (other than passing the reader around and thus ones whole library).

However, the point about access to journal articles etc being easy and convenient and therefore changing pedagogy is likely to have an impact on the way in which these are accessed.

However, I suspect that the e-bookreader and then laptop will converge with very high quality screens and lower weight as laptops loose any motorised parts (discs, CD/DVDs etc).